Conferences

All in the Family

by Daniel Hopkins

The Beasleys adopted a girl no one thought would survive, then God did a miracle.

Lindsey Beasley sat alone in the quiet of her new home one morning in November 2014. She and her husband, Luke, had just moved in a few months before, and they were preparing for yet another major life change. They had just been approved by Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) to be foster parents. (You might recall their story from Gateway Life in September 2014 about how God miraculously provided them with their dream home for becoming foster parents.) Lindsey describes the house as being a peaceful place, and visitors—including CPS workers—have mentioned how serene the home feels. But on that morning in November, her quiet moment was interrupted when the phone rang.

On the other line a worker from their foster care agency explained that Khloe, a girl born four days before, needed immediate placement. When Lindsey and Luke were going through the process of becoming foster parents, they requested the children be at least six months old. However, Lindsey felt God moving her to say yes. “When she said her name, my heart started beating out of my chest,” says Lindsey. “It was so sweet of God to give me a physical sign of what was happening spiritually, because these calls can feel really confusing.”

Luke, a basketball coach at Byron Nelson High School in Trophy Club, was traveling to a tournament with his team and wouldn’t be home until much later that night. Lindsey said yes, but the foster care agent was doubtful the infant would be placed with the Beasleys because it had been 20 minutes since Khloe’s name entered their system. Typically, in that amount of time, 20 to 30 families would have already jumped at the opportunity to foster a newborn like Khloe. “People wait for a long time to get babies,” says Luke. “Everyone wants a baby.” Somehow, Luke and Lindsey were the only ones on the list.

Lindsey ended the call at noon and CPS brought Khloe to the Beasleys’ house around four o’clock. It was clear from the moment she arrived she would need much more than a home. Born at 38 weeks—still considered full-term—Khloe weighed a little more than four pounds. She was malnourished in the womb and because of her mother’s drug addiction, she was born addicted to opiates, methamphetamines, alcohol, and nicotine. She was emaciated and fit in the palm of Luke’s hand. When she arrived at the Beasleys’ home, the symptoms of withdrawal from all those substances were well underway. “The first night wasn’t warm and fuzzy because of the withdrawals, but it was still a special time,” says Lindsey. “Every night when I would sit up with her for hours, I would so clearly hear God’s voice and feel His presence comforting her. His presence gave me the energy and love I needed.”

In the days and weeks that followed, Khloe was diagnosed with failure to thrive, and there were many nights she wasn’t expected to survive. However, she kept making miraculous recoveries, and Luke and Lindsey kept praying. As the complications continued, it became more difficult for Lindsey to work in Gateway’s compassion ministry, and she eventually left so she could care for Khloe around the clock. At one point, Khloe was seeing 14 different medical specialists and appointments occurred several times a day.

Then a big appointment came, but it wasn’t with a doctor. At Khloe’s six-month hearing with CPS—the hearing to determine if she would continue to be placed in Luke and Lindsey’s care—her biological mother came prepared to make a case to take her home. Since the birth, she had gone through rehab and tried to get clean, but when she realized the extent of Khloe’s complications, she knew she didn’t have the resources to provide for her. “She left the court after finding out Khloe had special needs and was never seen again,” says Lindsey. “We never met her dad.”

After this pivotal day in court, a plan was set in motion for Luke and Lindsey to legally adopt Khloe. Her physical complications persisted and she was diagnosed with deafness, seizures, and brain damage, and doctors were grasping at anything to figure out what was happening. At different times they thought they had it figured out and called it cancer, HIV, and cystic fibrosis. The Beasleys had to go through the fear of having each one, but thankfully God didn’t make them walk that road. Then, shortly after that six-month hearing, something began to change.

Fresh out of yet another hospital visit with Khloe, Lindsey took her to church, and during worship, someone felt led to pray for her. In that instant, Khloe’s deafness was healed. Two days later, doctors were perplexed when tests showed she could hear perfectly. “I kept telling them, ‘God healed her!’” says Lindsey. “At first, they thought something was wrong with the machine, but she passed the hearing test and all the follow-up tests.”

A few months later, when Khloe was one year old, Luke and Lindsey adopted her and officially made her a member of their family, though the trials they’d faced had already drawn them close together. The adoption was just an outward sign of what they knew from the very beginning—they were a true family. The healing continued, and now at nearly 2 years old, Khloe is laughing, jumping, and running—something doctors said would be impossible without the support of leg braces. She has gone from having 14 specialists to only 3, and that number is dwindling. “Since her adoption, she has had so many moments of instantaneous healing,” says Lindsey. “The miracles shine brighter than the darkness of the illness.”

And for the first time, after two of the most di cult years of their lives, the Beasleys are grateful that the toughest days are behind them and their biggest problems are now just small ones. Now they simply get to enjoy being a family of three.

“I wouldn’t change the last two years. Our marriage and our relationship with Khloe was strengthened because we were put through the re in such an intense way,” says Lindsey. “We don’t sweat the small stuff—we cherish the small problems because we know what it feels like to dream for them when things are so difficult. We’re just really grateful.”